December 3, 2010

Source: Fox News

CANCUN, Mexico –  A bloc of Latin American  countries issued a stern warning to rich nations Friday that unless they commit  to new emissions cuts, the U.N. climate talks in Cancun will fail.

Negotiators from Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador —  all members of  the leftist ALBA alliance  —  said they would not accept the refusal by some  developed countries to extend their binding emissions targets under the Kyoto  Protocol, the climate pact that expires in 2012.

Venezuela and Bolivia were among a handful of countries that blocked a  nonbinding climate accord with voluntary emissions pledges from being adopted at  last year’s U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen. The rules of the talks  require consensus.

Without naming them, Venezuelan negotiator Claudia Salerno said “a handful”  of developed countries had ruled out a second commitment period under Kyoto. She  called their stance “unacceptable” and said it could hold back progress on other  issues being discussed in Cancun.

“If there is no second period of Kyoto, it is very difficult that there can  be any balanced package” of decisions in Cancun, Salerno said.

The fate of the Kyoto Protocol, or the shape of any agreement that succeeds  it, is one of the most divisive issues in the negotiations.

Earlier this week Japan said it was not interested in negotiating an  extension of the Kyoto targets, arguing it was pointless unless the world’s  largest polluters  —  China is No. 1, and the U.S. No. 2  —  also accepted  binding targets. U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said Russia and Canada  also oppose extending their Kyoto targets.

For 13 years, since it was negotiated, the United States has rejected the  Kyoto accord, partly because it made no demands on rapidly developing countries  like China and India.

Venezuela and Bolivia and other members of the ALBA bloc argue that climate  change is the result of a capitalist system and demand steep emissions cuts from  industrialized countries deemed to have a historical responsibility for the  release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

Figueres said she wasn’t expecting the positions of the ALBA nations and the  developed countries to “dramatically change” in Cancun.

“What needs to happen here is countries need to find a compromise,” she  said.

She and other U.N. officials hope for agreements on secondary issues at  Cancun, and expect this central dispute to extend into next year’s  negotiations.

Delegates at the 193-nation conference are also discussing setting up a  “green fund” to disburse aid to poorer countries to reduce their emissions and  adapt to climate change; to make it cheaper for developing nations to obtain  climate-friendly proprietary technology; and to finalize more elements of a  complex plan to pay developing countries for protecting their tropical  forests.

European and U.S. negotiators said the discord over extending Kyoto targets  could hinder progress on those issues.

“It may be that the problems with Kyoto could completely tie this conference  up, but I am very hopeful that that doesn’t happen, because I think it would be  a huge mistake,” U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said.

EU negotiator Arthur Rung-Metzger urged the ALBA nations to compromise.

“If countries park on extreme positions, it’s just not possible to come to a  consensus, that is certainly something that is still hanging like a Sword of  Damocles over this conference,” he said.

As the climate talks drag on, the Earth continues to warm. On Thursday the  World Meteorological Organization reported that 2010 is on track to become one  of the three hottest years and 2001-2010 the warmest 10-year period on  record.

Scientists say a gradually warming earth is expected to bring on droughts and  floods with increasing frequency, and a report issued at the conference Friday  said about 350,000 lives are at risk annually worldwide from such natural  disasters.

Prepared by a group of vulnerable nations headed by the island state of the  Maldives and DARA, a Madrid-based humanitarian research group, the Climate  Vulnerability Monitor 2010 said the effects of climate change could contribute  to the deaths of 5 million people by 2020 and cause as many as 1 million deaths  per year by 2030 if global warming isn’t slowed.