WARSAW (Poland): UN climate talks are likely to run overtime with more than 190 countries arguing over the building blocks for a new pact to slow global warming.
A draft text presented Friday, the last scheduled day of the two-week conference in Warsaw, gave only vague direction on when countries should present their targets for restricting carbon emissions. That’s a key element of the deal that’s supposed to be adopted in Paris in 2015.
Despite a push by the European Union and the US for a clear timeline for announcing targets, the draft text said only that commitments should be presented “well in advance” of the Paris summit.
US climate envoy Todd Stern called for “stronger language” to drive the work forward.The EU wants to present its target in 2014 and the US is aiming for early 2015 to leave time for a review process before the Paris conference. But some countries, including China, the world’s biggest carbon polluter, have been reluctant to set a deadline.
’’We should talk, and we should deliver and announce during the process of negotiations,” Chinese delegate Liu Zhenmin told reporters. “I don’t know when. I cannot say timeframe.”
He suggested that China shouldn’t be expected to make emissions cuts on the same level as industrialised countries, which built their economies with fossil fuels. The EU and the US want to get rid of the rich-poor division that has guided the talks in the past, saying China’s rapid economic growth means it no longer can compare itself with poorer developing countries.—AP
