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BANGKOK: The goodwill felt during the Bali Roadmap in December 2007 when nations uniformly agreed about the looming disaster of climate change, has given way to tough talk among 163 nations seeking consensus on how to move forward.
The UN sponsored meetings are tasked with putting together a new global warming deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires at the end of 2009.
But negotiations are proving to be tense between rich and poor countries.
Professor Ram Shrestha, Professor of Energy Economics, Asian Institute of Technology, said: "The countries will have a common but differentiated responsibility. That means everybody will share this responsibility, but the degree of sharing, to what extent different countries will share responsibility will not be uniform. It will be differentiated based on the different countries' own affordability and capability."
But continuing disagreement between developed nations and those seeking to catch up like China and India have dampened negotiators efforts to begin to draft a treaty that would fairly address concerns of all nations involved.
Professor Shrestha said: "The major thing now is how developing countries will be motivated through proper incentives. Their concern is that there should be a mechanism for effective technology transfers, that means transfer of climate friendly technologies to developing countries.
“Developing countries also need some kind of financial resources in order that they will be able to afford these more expensive climate friendly technologies."
The European Union has pushed for maritime and aviation fuels to be subject to emissions controls although neither currently falls under the Kyoto Protocol.
Countries with strong travel industries fear the proposal will make their costs skyrocket.
Other snags include a Japanese effort to implement sector based strategies which some poorer nations fear their growth industries will be subject to the same emissions targets as industrialised countries.
And the United States' offer of US$2 billion over the next three years as part of its Clean Technology Fund was rejected due to the US$30 billion that developing nations would have to pay after the initial grant to maintain green technology.
Experts said that unless major players like the United States join the global community in addressing this problem, no response will be very effective.
But the American economic downturn will certainly be a factor in its participation.
To that end, eyes are on the US presidential elections although all candidates have promised to be more proactive regarding climate change than current President George W. Bush. - CNA/vm
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