Climate pact process stumbles as countries bicker in Bonn

Terra Daily via AFP: Less than six months after the world agreed to craft a new global climate pact by 2015, talks stumbled at a crucial preparatory meeting Friday as rich and poorer countries butted heads.

With the mood still strained by the fractious 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, negotiations in Bonn showed developed and developing nations split on apportioning responsibility for tackling global warming. Fast-growing countries like China and India insisted the West, which has been polluting more for longer, must shoulder more of the mitigation burden.

Amid fresh delays and procedural wrangling, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres warned the target of pegging global warming to a manageable 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) seemed to be slipping ever further away.

"Current efforts on mitigation are not sufficient, and the doors on improving the probabilities of a maximum two degrees are actually closing in on governments," she said....

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