EU flexes muscle in climate talks with 120-state alliance

By Pat Reber Dec 9, 2011, 11:51 GMT

Durban - The European Union secured a beachhead Thursday in its efforts against global warming, announcing an alliance with 100 of the world's poorest countries and island states during UN climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

The alliance gives the 27-member EU and its allies a majority of the 193 members in the umbrella UN climate organization, lending it added punch in bringing reluctant and large carbon producers like the United States and China to heel.

Delegates from Poland, which holds the current EU presidency, along with those from Gambia and Bangladesh, made the announcement on the next to last day of the two-week-long talks.

In the face of growing pressure from negotiators and environmental organizations, US chief envoy Todd Stern indicated what was seen as a greater willingness to go along, echoing a slight nod that came from China on Sunday.

After being pelted with verbal protests at a formal speech in a plenary session, Stern told reporters that Washington was ready to support the mandate for new UN climate talks, as advocated by the European Union.

'If we get the kind of roadmap that countries have called for - the EU has called for, that the US supports - for preparing for and negotiating a future regime, whether it ends up being legally binding or not, we don't know yet, but we are strongly committed to a promptly starting process to move forward on that,' Stern said.

Hours later, however, US spokesperson Emily Cain qualified his remarks, noting in a statement that Stern had not said that the US supports a legally binding agreement - a key point of conflict with the EU. The diplomatic two-step echoed China's retreat earlier this week from its Sunday advance toward accommodation.

Lou Leonard of the environmental group WWF, who has been closely monitoring the UN negotiations, called Stern's statement a 'shift' that indicated 'the endgame and that the negotiations are starting in earnest. It's a good thing.'

Another sign of progress in the talks came from the Brazilian ambassador to the talks, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, who said he was 'seeing convergence.'

The EU alliance marked the first time in two decades of climate talks that the European Union and developing and island states banded together to tackle the crisis of rising temperatures.

The common EU goal is a legally binding agreement to go into effect by 2020 and to include countries that either were exempted as developing countries under the waning Kyoto Protocol - like China - or never ratified the treaty, like the United States.

All countries, especially rapidly growing emerging economies like China and India, would be legally required to also reduce carbon emissions, according to the EU vision.

The announcement of the coalition late Thursday afternoon created new hope for a breakthrough on Friday, when members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will vote on a final package.

Martin Kaiser of Germany's Greenpeace told dpa that his concern in the final hours was that the EU might compromise at the last minute and go along with a watered-down outcome.

Kaiser was, however, encouraged by certain signs. For example, that Brazilian Minister of Environment, Izabella Teixeira, declared her country ready to consider a legally binding treaty - something Brazil has insisted could only be undertaken once a Kyoto extension was in place.

Success or failure of the talks still teeters on decisions by a number of delegates, above all China and the US. The mega-conference with 15,000 participants ends on Friday. But it is expected to continue well into the early hours of Saturday.

Since developed countries who favour an extension of Kyoto represent only 15 per cent of the world's global emissions, the EU is pushing for the broader deal. Otherwise, even with voluntary commitments from a Cancun session in 2010 by more than 80 countries to reduce emissions, temperatures will rise more than the 2-degree-celsius limit scientists have set as the borderline for humanitarian catastrophe.

'China is key,' Kaiser said. He believes the Beijing government is not opposed to a new international climate treaty.

'I am sure that the Chinese government is ready to operate at a new level,' said Li Yan, head of China's Greenpeace organization.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen told reporters that the new EU coalition sent a message to the largest producers of carbon emissions outside of Europe that the EU and the developing world were united.

'We cannot wait 10 more years and do nothing,' he said.