LIMA: UN talks on slowing climate change were threatened with collapse yesterday after China clashed with the United States and led emerging nations to reject a compromise outline of an agreement.
With talks already in overtime because of deadlock after the December 1-12 meeting, China said a draft text put too much burden on the poor to limit greenhouse-gas emissions compared with the rich nations whose citizens have burnt most fossil fuels.
“We need a Lima consensus, but given the current station we have deadlock,” Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told delegates from 190 nations seeking to agree the foundation of a UN climate deal to be completed in Paris in a year’s time.
US Climate Change Envoy Todd Stern urged all to accept the compromise text, saying failure in Lima would be viewed as a “major breakdown” that would threaten the Paris summit and the credibility of the UN system to address climate change.
The clash between the two top emitters of greenhouse gases underscored that an agreement jointly announced by US President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping last month to combat climate change did not translate into a new, common approach. Reuters
