African nations end Copenhagen talks boycott

A group of 55 African nations ended a day-long boycott of UN climate talks in Barcelona yesterday, but warned they were prepared to repeat the protest and potentially derail the two-year long Copenhagen negotiations unless rich nations agree to more ambitious medium-term emission cuts.

In a dramatic day at the last round of talks before the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, an unprecedented coalition of African states forced the cancellation of a series of work sessions on the draft negotiating text, insisting they were only willing to discuss industrialised nations' emission targets for 2020.

Late in the day, a deal was brokered by the negotiations' chairman John Ashe, who said that six of the 10 remaining work sessions would be given over to discussing emissions targets, prompting the group of African nations to return to the negotiating table.

However, they warned that they were prepared to repeat the boycott unless industrialised nations showed a willingness to sign up to more ambitious emission targets. Pa Ousman Jarju from the Gambian delegation warned that " failure...in tomorrow's discussions will give us no option but a suspension".

Significantly, the unprecedented coalition of African countries received backing from virtually all other developing countries with the G77 plus China group of 130 nations, the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, and a number of Latin America countries, all issuing statements expressing broad support for the African boycott.

The African group signalled that they had been forced to take bold action by industrialised nations' ongoing refusal to commit to emission reductions in line with the 25 to 40 per cent cuts recommended by the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Current emission targets for 2020 from industrialised countries equate to aggregate cuts of less than 10 per cent on 1990 levels. Meanwhile, the US yesterday again delayed its proposed climate bill which, even if passed, would commit the world's largest per capita emitter to emission cuts of just four per cent on 1990 levels by 2020.

"We're going around and around in circles on technical side issues rather than the core issue," Alfred Wills, South Africa's lead negotiator, told Bloomberg. "The countries which have put pledges on the table which are within the range required by science are Norway and Japan. That's it."

The day of protest came as calls for the negotiators to deliver a robust deal in Copenhagen continued to grow. The mayors of the largest cities in Europe and the US today signed a public appeal for an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions to be reached, and pledged to help implement any treaty within their cities.

Meanwhile, a major global survey of over 12,000 people found that almost two thirds believe a new international climate deal is "very important", while 79 per cent said they wanted a global commitment to cut emissions by between 50 and 80 per cent by 2050.

The survey from HSBC polled over 1,000 people in 12 different countries, including the US, UK, India, China and Brazil, and found there was widespread public support for a deal to be reached in Copenhagen that contained ambitious commitments to cut carbon emissions.

"With just over a month to go before Copenhagen, this is a clear call from the global population for a strong and effective deal," said Lord Stern, adviser to HSBC on economic development and climate change. "Rich and developing countries must act together to create an agreement that will lay the foundations for a future era of dynamic low-carbon growth."