Rich-vs.-poor nations’ clash stalls work toward 2015 climate pact

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  • Rich-vs.-poor nations’ clash stalls work toward 2015 climate pact - latimes.com
    http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-climate-debate-rich-poor-nations-20131122,0,2259183.story#axzz2laR

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    The issue that has prevented a major advance in the battle against global warming for two decades has scuttled progress at the latest U.N. gathering aimed at forging a climate pact by 2015: how much rich nations should pay to help developing countries build their economies with clean-energy sources.

    The United States and the European Union wanted a firm deadline set at the conference in Warsaw for each of the 195 countries party to the talks to make commitments on emissions reductions that will be enshrined in a new global climate pact at a meeting in Paris in December 2015.

    But China, India and a self-proclaimed group of “like-minded” countries resisted setting a deadline for specific commitments at the Warsaw conference, arguing that they shouldn’t be required to make the same investments to reduce carbon output as rich nations that created the problem of greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels during their largely unregulated industrialization in past centuries.

    With China now emitting more carbon than any other country and its economy poised to overtake that of the United States in just a few years, the Western countries have balked at committing to what they see as an increasingly outdated financing model.

    After a 30-hour marathon of closed-door negotiations that concluded Saturday, the two-week Warsaw conference fizzled to an inconclusive end, with drafters of the final document substituting the word “contributions” in the place of “commitments,” according to news agency reports. That allowed both sides to claim victory, with the U.S. and Europe having secured their “deadlines” and the developing nations bloc able to define for themselves what “contribution” each is prepared to make to reduce emissions....

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    #United-States
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    #Warsaw
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    #India