Posted by admin on 04 9th, 2010 | no responses

U.N. climate talks in Bonn are off to a rocky start

by Agence France-Presse Activists outside the Bonn climate talks ask negotiators to “pick up the pieces” after CopenhagenPhoto courtesy WWF Climate via FlickrBONN — Hopes of hoisting the U.N. process for climate change out of the mire after December’s flawed Copenhagen summit suffered a setback at talks here on Friday. In their first parley since the stormy December meeting, countries in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) divided over how to plot the way forward, and the mood was soured by fresh finger-pointing. “The one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history,” said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, representing African nations. Copenhagen damaged “the trust that is necessary for any partnership,” he said. The three-day gathering in the former West German capital takes place nearly four months after a summit that, far from rallying humankind behind a post-2012 climate-stabilizing pact, came within an inch of disaster. Attended by some 120 heads of state and government, the summit was saved after a couple of dozen leaders cobbled together a brief document outlining areas of agreement. Their “Copenhagen Accord” sets down a general goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), includes rich and poor countries in pledges for tackling greenhouse gases, and earmarks nearly $30 billion in aid from 2010-2012, with prospects of up to $100 billion annually by 2020. But criticism of the accord resurfaced on Friday. Left-led countries in the Caribbean and Latin America noted that emissions pledges under the Copenhagen Accord are only voluntary and, at present levels, would ensure warming of 4 degrees C (7.2

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