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Time slipping away for Durban climate deal

Published: 10 Dec 11 11:15 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20111210-39423.html

Time is fast running out for a deal at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, the German environment minister warned on Saturday as the conference went deep into an unscheduled 13th day.

"We are now in an extremely critical situation because of time," German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen told journalists after all-night wrangling.

"The delay is very critical. ... It is very doubtful whether we will succeed."

Separately, French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said the extremely slow pace of negotiations under South African chairmanship made the odds of a deal on Saturday ever slimmer.

The marathon talks had been due to end on Friday but ran on for a 13th day with no sign of a breakthrough on a package which is enmeshed in a web of connected issues.

On the table is a proposal for a new pact on greenhouse gas emissions that for the first time would bring all countries under one legally binding roof.

Both Röttgen and Kosciusko-Morizet criticised South Africa's slow method of consensus-building and the fact that key draft documents, essential for decision-making, had still not appeared.

"We are in the worst situation, that of failure because of time management," Kosciusko-Morizet said.

"We are risking failure because of a lack of negotiations, a lack of confrontation," she said. "Last night, the (conference) chair did not even seem to take the problem of time into account."

AFP/bk

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

13:23 December 10, 2011 by n230099
In these times it's amazing that this kind of nonsense still festers.
13:42 December 10, 2011 by pepsionice
What you tend to notice...is that all of these big global climate change meetings, occur at 5-star resorts. Go to the Durban airport and count the number of private aircraft sitting on the ground.....not a dozen or two dozen.....but it gets up into the fifty to seventy range. Toss in the private nightly parties where you have to be big names to enter private party "A" but just about anyone can enter private party "C". Tons of booze is involved. All in the name of global warming.
17:21 December 10, 2011 by derExDeutsche
Well, hopefully Adults there can still come to an arrangement where as the EU will pay more for petrol. Rich people, in poor(...and not so poor) countries will rightfully be demanding the EU's Fair Share.
03:22 December 11, 2011 by Larry Thrash
What a massive fraud. This movement is all about the money and nothing to do with the environment. Greed plain and simple.
00:36 April 25, 2013 by Immigration Lawyer
As a South African, I know that time management in our country can be somewhat poor at times, and government corruption as some pointed out is a real factor, but I think those points aside, these meetings happen for a reason.

Craig Smith Immigration Consultant
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