UN climate talks walk out, Australia blamed

An influential group of the world’s poor countries have walked out of increasingly fractious United Nations climate negotiations after Australia, the European Union, the United States and other developed countries made demands they insisted were unreasonable.

The rich and poor countries were deadlocked over how to raise aid to help developing countries cope with global warming, in another setback as the UN talks in the Polish capital, Warsaw, sought progress towards a 2015 deal.

Reuters Newsagency reports the rich countries, including Australia, insisted that the question of who should pay compensation for extreme climate events be discussed only after 2015.

The orchestrated move by the G77 and China bloc of 132 countries came during talks about “loss and damage”, how countries should respond to climate impacts that are difficult or impossible to adapt to.

Bolivia and other developing countries accused the rich of failing to show willingness to discuss aid or compensation for losses and damage due to global warming, such as rising sea levels or creeping desertification.

Dr Saleemul Huq, the scientist whose work on loss and damage helped put the issue of recompense on the conference agenda, said: “Discussions were going well in a spirit of co-operation,.

“Then at the end of the session on loss and damage Australia put everything agreed into brackets, so the whole debate went to waste.”

Australia was accused of not taking the negotiations seriously

The two-week Warsaw talks, due to end later today, are trying to lay the foundations for a new global climate accord meant to be agreed in 2015 and enter into force from 2020.

“I think we will find a resolution,” US climate envoy Todd Stern said of calls by emerging nations for a mechanism to cover loss and damage.

Reuters reports the rich countries fear it would be costly and make them legally liable for droughts, heatwaves and storms.

For many poorer countries, the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan has raised the urgency of compensation.

Global economic losses caused by extreme weather have risen to nearly $200 billion a year over the last decade and look set to increase further as climate change worsens, the World Bank said this week.

“The compensation that those countries require is something that is absolutely fundamental and crucial,” said India’s environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan.

Reuters reports many richer countries are reluctant to foot the bill and are focused on spurring growth in their stagnant economies.

“We cannot have a system where there will be automatic compensation whenever severe weather events are happening at one place or other around the planet,” the EU’s climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said.

One of the most contentious issues at UN talks has long been climate finance, or money put aside to help developing countries cut emissions and adapt to a changing climate.

Industrialised nations have promised to raise the allocation to US$100 billion a year by 2020 for developing countries, from US$10 billion a year in 2010-2012.

The charity Oxfam has estimated that climate aid has totalled between US$7.6 billion and US$16.3 billion so far this year.

At the talks, Japan promised $16 billion over three years and on Wednesday Norway, Britain and the United States also pledged $280 million to sustain the world’s forests.

Negotiators have set up a Green Climate Fund to channel some of the $100 billion but it is still empty and cannot deliver any money until the second half of next year.

The International Energy Agency has estimated that $1 trillion a year of additional investment is needed to 2020 for the energy sector alone to shift to and deliver cleaner sources.