AFP - Russia Blocks Climate Talks For 5th Straight Day; Demanding Unanimous Votes For All Decisions
PARIS — Procedural protests by Russia held up part of the UN climate talks on Friday for the fifth successive day, according to frustrated delegates at the labyrinthine negotiations in Bonn. Russia has been blocking a key technical panel whose work feeds into the 12-day negotiation round.
The Russians, supported by Belarus and Ukraine, are demanding a debate on how decisions are agreed at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 20-year forum for addressing global warming and its impacts. They say they sought to object to a deal at the UNFCCC's last big meeting, held in Doha, Qatar, last December, that saw an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
But they complain they were ignored by the conference's Qatari chairman, who gavelled the agreement through. "There's a big fight about how rules are agreed," said a source with a European NGO. "They obviously feel very sore about what happened there, and they are making a big deal about it."
Other countries have expressed sympathy for Russia's argument for clarity on how UN decisions are adopted, but opposed its demands for a debate. Decisions in climate talks are already crimped by national interests and would be even weaker if they have to be formally adopted unanimously rather than by the fuzzier format of consensus, said one delegate.
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