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The 12-day United Nations summit on climate control in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, has ended with a meagre compromise declaration.
After arduous negotiations, all that the nearly 200 countries attending the summit managed to agree at the eleventh hour was that they would reconvene next May in the German city of Bonn for an informal seminar of several days.
A more ambitious deal failed to materialise due to irreconcilable differences between the European Union and the United States. The EU was pressing for an agreement detailing specific measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The United States, which rejected the protocol three years ago, only proved willing to hold a seminar, and stressed it would not be bound by any agreements.
A final deal was further delayed today by a last-ditch attempt by India, China and other countries with high economic growth rates to receive guarantees that they will not be forced to implement new emission targets, a demand they did succeed in extracting.
(rnw.nl)
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