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BANGKOK: Outraged poor nations bearing the brunt of
global warming have become increasingly bold in UN-led climate
talks, but some worry that recent meetings of large countries are
sidelining their voices.
A grouping of 192 countries under
the United Nations is leading the way in negotiating a groundbreaking
climate change treaty, and most of its members are currently in
Bangkok to try to hammer out a two-year work plan.
The meeting comes soon after the
United States chaired a meeting of 16 nations most responsible for
global warming, and ahead of a special climate summit on the
sidelines of the Group of Eight summit of rich nations.
“We haven’t been invited to
either of those processes,” Espen Ronneberg, a Samoa-based climate
change advisor to the Association of Small Island States, said on
the sidelines of the Bangkok talks. “We need to have a global
consensus on climate change, so to have a separate process that is
not completely inclusive is not that helpful.”
While major developing nations
such as China and India are part of the big initiatives, the Group
of 77, a bloc of developing nations, said it has not been invited.
“The balance has to come from
everybody, all the representative groups, being around the table,
not specialized specific groups which have almost the same
purpose—that’s a problem,” said Byron Blake, deputy
representative to the United Nations of current G77 chair Antigua
and Barbuda.
The world has until 2009 to draft
a new pact on battling global warming, which should come into force
by 2012, when current Kyoto Protocol targets for rich nations to
slash greenhouse gas emissions expire.
A report by the world’s leading
climate scientists last year warned that drought, floods and storms
will increase as global temperatures rise, hitting poor countries
hardest.
As they see climate change begin
to affect their environments and economies, impoverished nations are
becoming more vocal, said Antonio Hill, policy adviser to
development group Oxfam.
“There is a very dramatic
difference between this year and last year in the negotiations
versus 10 years ago or even five years ago,” he said.
Developing countries want the
rich world to commit to ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions—which trap the sun’s heat and cause global
warming—and pledge to transfer “green” technologies and fund
climate change-battling initiatives in poorer countries.
--AFP
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