US-led bloc trying to scuttle Kyoto Protocol: G-77 : Environment

Bali, Dec 12 - Some industrialised countries led by the US are trying to scuttle the entire Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Group of 77 countries said Wednesday as the Dec 3-14 Bali summit to address climate change appeared to lose all momentum.

As the high-level segment of the summit started in the morning with over 130 ministers and the UN secretary general in attendance, the US and some other industrialised countries suggested the launch of negotiations for a 'comprehensive treaty' to address climate change.

The G-77 saw that as an attempt to erode and possibly scuttle the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN Munir Akram said here.

Expressing the 'deep unease of the group at these attempts', he said: 'We would like to reiterate that the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol remain the central multilateral framework for cooperative actions to address climate change.'

The developing countries that make up the G-77 are afraid that a new dispensation to fight climate change would never get off the ground because the industrialised countries would insist that major developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa take on legally binding commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are leading to global warming.

Akram said this would be a 'less equitable instrument'. Pakistan is currently the co-chair of the G-77.

India's Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Kapil Sibal told IANS any such idea to ask developing countries to take on legally binding GHG emissions was a non-starter.

Earlier, at the plenary session of the summit's high-level segment, speaking on behalf of G-77 and China, Akram had expressed the group's 'extreme disappointment' that there had been no decision at the UN climate change conference that would allow the implementation of green technologies identified by developing countries.

Technology transfer to mitigate emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) that warm the earth's atmosphere has been one of the most contentious issues at the Bali summit.

Industrialised countries have blocked discussions on the plea that it was up to private companies to transfer technologies, though it is supposed to be one of the four building blocks of the global move to address climate change, according to UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer.

Akram told the delegates at the plenary: 'The development and transfer of technology to developing countries through an effective mechanism supported by adequate and predictable financial resource base is vital to enabling developing countries to face the challenges posed by climate change.

'We would like to express our disappointment over the manner in which we had to struggle for long hours to restore this important item on the SBI (subsidiary body on implementation of the UNFCCC) agenda. It is our hope that this subject will be given the priority it deserves.