US & EU Delegates - No Chance Of Binding Climate Agreement In Durban In December

[hatrack]

The chances of agreeing a legally binding deal to tackle climate change in South Africa has been dismissed by climate envoys from the EU and the US, two of the world's largest emitters. EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard admitted after a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) in Brussels that hopes of a breakthrough pact in Durban were all but over.

"The good news is that there is a general recognition of the necessity of a legally binding agreement," she said. "The bad news is that no legally binding agreement deal will be done in Durban."

Delegates at the MEF, a gathering of the world's 17 largest economies, are meant to be discussing how to advance efforts to cut greenhouse emissions, increase the supply of clean energy and mitigate global warming. High on the agenda is how to move on from the limited progress made at the Copenhagen, Cancun and Bangkok summits over the past two years.

The Cancun summit did establish a $100bn climate fund, along with deals to protect forests and a scheme to transfer clean technology to poorer nations. However, poorer nations remain unhappy at the prospect of voluntary carbon cutting targets replacing the mandatory goals agreed under the Kyoto Protocol once the treaty expires in 2012.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/28/durban-climate-deal-impossible

[pscot]

1. The good news is that we know the ship is sinking

The bad news is that we can't do a thing about it. (Well, we could, but we prefer not to.)