Rich-poor divide reopens at UN climate talks

Developing nations say the industrialized world responsible for most of the emissions historically should bear the brunt of the emissions cuts while developed nations want to make sure that fast-growing economies like China and India don’t get off too easy. China is now the world’s top polluter.

“There is a total stalemate,” said Artur Runge-Metzger,the chief negotiator for the European Union.

The negotiations in Bonn were meant to build on a deal struck in December in Durban,South Africa,to create a new global climate pact by 2015 that would make both rich and poor nations rein in emissions caused by the burning of oil and other fossil fuels.

But on the next-to-last day of two weeks of talks there was little sign of progress,as different interpretations emerged on what,exactly,was agreed upon last year.

“There is distrust and there is frustration in the atmosphere,” Seyni Nafo,spokesman for a group of African countries,told The Associated Press.

The European Union claims China and other developing countries are backsliding on commitments made in Durban to bring the discussion on emissions cuts from both rich and poor nations into one forum,instead of the current structure,which has two parallel negotiation tracks.

Developing countries backed by climate activists accuse the US,EU and other industrialized nations of trying to evade commitments made in previous negotiations and shift responsibilities for tackling climate change to the developing world.

“Developed countries like the US,Japan,Canada and Russia … have consistently blocked references to the existing legal principles,while continuing to ignore the fact that their meager emission cut targets expose the world’s most

vulnerable people to climate change’s devastating effects,” said Mohamed Adow,a senior climate change adviser at Christian Aid.

Since their launch in the early 1990s,the UN talks have had little success reducing emissions of the heat-trapping gases that a large majority of climate scientists say are warming the Earth,with potentially devastating consequences for poor countries ill-prepared to deal rising sea levels,floods,droughts and other effects of a changing climate.