Climate [Scam] Talks Floundering without Ministers

Negotiations meant to avert dangerous climate change are stuck over future emissions restrictions in wrangling at meetings below the ministerial level, undermining the U.N.-backed process.

The pace of talks has slowed since a two-year campaign for a binding deal ending at a Copenhagen summit in 2009, when world leaders failed to deliver, and acrimony lingers.

Developed countries have yet to decide whether to fund additional sessions before an annual ministerial conference in Durban in South Africa in November, pinning this on more progress at a June 6-17 meeting in Bonn, Germany.
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“I’m a little sad participating in these negotiations because the atmosphere is so confrontational,” said Akira Yamada, head of the Japanese delegation.
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The talks can only proceed by consensus, and in Bonn were stuck not only on a new round of Kyoto, but also a proposal from the world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, for compensation in case increased climate action cuts revenues of oil producers.

Debate over the agenda made some countries doubt the value of extra meetings before Durban. “Without progress in these two weeks there’s no point having another session in the fall,” the Colombian delegation told the launch of the Bonn session.
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“We’re not prepared to move if the obligations just point only to those in the developed world,” said Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. head of delegation in Bonn.