China: US is sabotaging Copenhagen climate treaty by 'changing Kyoto rules'

The US and other rich countries are "sabotaging" the Kyoto protocol, the only international treaty in force that fights global warming, by rejecting their historical responsibilities, China and 130 other developing nations have said in coordinated statements.

Published: 5:46PM BST 05 Oct 2009
"We now hear statements and actions that will lead to a termination of the Kyoto protocol and everything that it represents," Yu Qingtai, China's ambassador for climate change, said during a news conference at UN climate talks in Bangkok on Monday.
The accusation came as 180 nations were trying to lay the framework for a global climate deal in Copenhagen in December that would take over when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol run out in 2012.
"It's just like the final five minutes into a game in which one side is putting forward a set of new rules ... and expects the other side to agree.
"That is not a fair way of conducting negotiations," Mr Yu said.
The world's nations promised nearly two years ago to hammer out a new global agreement by the end of 2009 to slash the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that drive global warming.
Emerging giants such as China and other developing countries say the new agreement should strengthen Kyoto, under which 37 highly industrialised nations took on hard commitments for cutting carbon dioxide pollution between 2008 and 2012.
The United States signed the treaty in 1992 but never ratified it, and thus was exempt from its provisions.
In Bangkok, several nations - notably the US, Australia and Japan - have floated proposals calling for an approach in which each country would make its own national commitments.
These would be measurable and verifiable, but outside any kind of internationally enforceable compliance regime.
Rich nations have suggested that poorer countries, which had no Kyoto obligations, could make efforts to curb carbon dioxide output in keeping with their level of development under such a scheme.
Instead, China called for beefing up Kyoto, which could exist along with whatever other measures might be adopted at the climate conference in Copenhagen.
The angry statements come after Carol Browner, Barack Obama's energy adviser, admitted that the US senate would probably not vote on its global warming bill before the talks in Copenhagen, seriously limiting the US president's ability to commit to new plans at the summit.