WARSAW, Nov 23: Almost 200 nations were deadlocked today over how to step up aid to ease the impact of global warming on developing nations as part of the foundations of an elusive UN climate accord due in 2015.
The Warsaw meeting, which had been due to end yesterday but extended into today morning, had little to show after two weeks except for a deal on new rules to protect tropical forests, which soak up carbon dioxide as they grow.
‘On finance there has been no progress,’ Claudia Salerno of Venezuela, who represents a group of developing nations including China and Indonesia, said late yesterday.
Developed nations, which promised in 2009 to raise climate aid to 100 billion dollars a year after 2020 from 10 billion dollars a year in the period 2010-12, were resisting calls by the developing world to set targets for 2013-19.
A draft text merely urged developed nations, which have been more focused on spurring economic growth than on fixing climate change, to set ‘increasing levels’ of aid.
The talks were also considering a new ‘Warsaw Mechanism’ to help developing nations cope with loss and damage from extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and floods, and creeping threats such as rising sea levels and desertification.
Developing nations insisted on a ‘mechanism’ – to show it was separate from existing structures – even though rich countries say that it will not get new funds beyond the planned 100 billion dollars a year from 2020.
In one step forward, governments agreed to a set of rules for safeguarding tropical forests in a deal aimed at unlocking big investments. The new plan is backed by 280 million dollars from the United States, Britain and Norway.
Deforestation accounts for perhaps a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions from human sources. Trees release carbon when they rot or burn.
(AGENCIES)
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