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The Doha round of climate talks plagued by serious differences between rich and poor nations spilled into the early hours of the day as no agreement could be reached over several matters of crucial importance, including finance and technology transfer, that can make or break the talks.
After several rounds of drafting and proposing amendments, rich and poor nations could not agree over the state of the long-term cooperative action — LCA as it is called — a track that was scheduled to close in Doha.
The US and EU were apparently insisting on closing the track, but developing countries including India and China have argued that core issues under the negotiating track including finance and technology transfer have not been adequately addressed.
There was sense in the past few days that the developed countries wanted to anyhow close the LCA track while junking the issues that were critical to poorer countries.
India and other developing countries have insisted that for any successful closure of the LCA track, all the unaddressed issues under it need to find ways to be adopted into other mechanisms of the UN framework.
As negotiators talked all night with no signs of progress, it was abruptly conveyed at 4 am that a “presentation of outcomes and next steps towards closure” would be made at 7.30am (local time), a meeting that was expected to take place earlier in the night.
The sudden announcement made it clear that negotiations were stuck. People privy to the details suggested the US was seeking the removal from the text of several areas and concerns of the developing world, practically making it impossible for any agreement on the issue.
The talks were supposed to end yesterday but stretched overnight, well into the early hours of the day.
Another sticking point in this year’s climate talks has been absence of any financial commitments from the rich nations to help poor countries deal with the impact of climate change. The US was also not keen to address the issue of loss and damage at the talks.
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