Climate talks: Parties yet to reach agreement
With climate negotiators from 185 countries are grappling line-by-line to finalise a 42-page draft for next climate summit, the nations are still divided into camps on various points of debates.
The points include the status of the Copenhagen Accord, ways of steep up emission cuts, technology transfer and modalities of governance of the climate funds, according to the delegates.
Negotiators inside the plenary said the parties had mainly repeated their positions during first week talks.
With the reports of the contact groups, the talks will resume on Monday again and continue until June 11 to finalise the draft for upcoming climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, in December.
"Expectations of a big agreement are not high after the failure of the Copenhagen summit six months ago", said a top official of the UNFCCC. But Mexico's chief negotiator criticised it for 'lowering expectations'.
Developing countries have raised new demands and pressed developed countries to take greater responsibility for climate change.
China and the G77 said the new text needs to emphasise more emission cuts to be made by developed countries. While developed countries argued that atmospheric greenhouse concentration would not be stable without emission reduction of growing economies which consists over 30 percent of total emission.
Some individual parties of the G-77 and China particularly Pakistan and Colombia opposed the 'most vulnerability issue' terming it 'confusing'. General notion is that Pakistan has supported India and China from behind to raise the issue.
Bangladesh, the Maldives and Small Island States (SIS) raised their voice in the LDC coordination meetings against the move saying they want preferential treatment for the countries which are more exposed to climate change.
African countries, termed as most vulnerable to climate change, want a "binding, inclusive, effective" deal made in Cancun and implementing second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
Small island states said the emission cut pledges of the big emitters so far are not enough and constituted a "death sentence" for many island states.
A group, including the United States, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Iceland, said they want a "long-term framework" beyond 2010, climate aid and the saving of forests.
Bolivia suggested for 6 percent of GDP for climate budget in line with defence budgets. It also wanted the text to include a target for levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The European Union said the new text should refer to the Copenhagen accord and should include emission reduction targets for individual countries.
Tuvalu rejected the idea saying any reference to the accord or wording from the accord should be included in the new text.
Countries are also have differences on the role of World Bank and Global Environment Fund in the governance and management of the climate funds.
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