That was quick. Having opened just this morning, the latest round of climate change talks in Barcelona have collapsed over the failure of developed countries (including New Zealand) to agree strong enough reductions targets:
The first signs of trouble occurred in the morning when the African Group (the group of African countries at the negotiations who work together) warned that if there wasn’t sufficient progress in the negotiations on developed country emission reduction targets, they’d walk about and not allow further meetings to be scheduled.Just as a reminder, to meet a 450ppm target - one which gives us only a 50% chance of avoiding damaging levels of climate change - the IPCC says that developed countries need to cut their emissions by 25% - 40% by 2020. Most are offering far less - effectively negotiating a treaty designed to fail. I am glad the developing world - who will be the primary victims of our emissions - are calling us on that, and demanding that any treaty be effective rather than simply an exercise in greenwash.The African Group’s threat reflects increasing frustration over the refusal of developed countries like New Zealand to adopt strong climate change targets.
Then in the afternoon, the chair of the meeting to discuss developed country targets told countries to not restate their targets (eg - like New Zealand’s nothing- 20% target) but to talk about how they could increase those targets. In other words, current proposed targets are well below what’s needed.
The request from the chair of the negotiations was met with complete silence from developed countries for around five minutes before South Africa finally said they were disappointed no developed country was willing to speak. From then on a walk-out was inevitable.
