Climate talks seek calm after fury at draft text
Thursday, 10 December 2009
COPENHAGEN, Dec 9(AFP): Negotiators at the UN climate marathon tried to steer into calmer waters Wednesday after developing countries blasted an early draft accord as favouring rich carbon emitters and sidelining the poor.
"We should stay on course, we need a legally binding outcome that has strong content that preserves the planet and protects the most vulnerable," Dessima Williams, representing the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) badly threatened by climate change, told AFP.
"That's our agenda, that's our mandate, everything else is distraction."
A European official, requesting anonymity, said: "It caused an upset, but we hope the dust is going to settle and we can get down to business."
The conference-due to climax on December 18 with more 110 world leaders in the grandstand-was just a day old when the controversy erupted.
A leaked draft of an early preliminary text, proposed by conference chair Denmark, unleashed charges from poorer nations, green groups and aid activists that it had been cooked up in private talks and was skewed in favour of advanced economies.
The text is a "serious violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiating process," declared Sudan's Lumumba Stanislas Dia Ping, who heads the Group of 77 bloc of developing countries.
He said poorer nations would not boycott the talks.
"We should stay on course, we need a legally binding outcome that has strong content that preserves the planet and protects the most vulnerable," Dessima Williams, representing the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) badly threatened by climate change, told AFP.
"That's our agenda, that's our mandate, everything else is distraction."
A European official, requesting anonymity, said: "It caused an upset, but we hope the dust is going to settle and we can get down to business."
The conference-due to climax on December 18 with more 110 world leaders in the grandstand-was just a day old when the controversy erupted.
A leaked draft of an early preliminary text, proposed by conference chair Denmark, unleashed charges from poorer nations, green groups and aid activists that it had been cooked up in private talks and was skewed in favour of advanced economies.
The text is a "serious violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiating process," declared Sudan's Lumumba Stanislas Dia Ping, who heads the Group of 77 bloc of developing countries.
He said poorer nations would not boycott the talks.