No government can afford to ignore climate change: Pachauri

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, Dec 15 (UNI) Marathon talks on climate change in Bali had to reach some concrete results and delegates could not afford to ignore the fourth report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the panel chief R K Pachauri .

''With the IPCC report no country can question the reality and the seriousness of climate change and no government in the world, including the US can ignore it,'' said Dr Pachauri.

The 190-nation conference headed deep into overtime after the United States and European Union (EU) feud over the framework for accelerating the fight against climate change beyond 2012.

However, the talks in Bali reached its conclusion after the US said it will accept a compromise text on curbing global warming and launch negotiations on a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

The new, stronger climate pact would succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, and involve the US and major developing economies, such as India and China.

The contentious issues in the talks was the role of developing countries in cutting emissions. The developing countries are exempted from the ambit of Kyoto Protocol, but the US, Canada and Japan insisted that rapidly emerging economies should take obligations under any new treaty.

However, countries such as India and China pointed out that though their emissions were now large they were much lower than those of rich countries, if measured in per capita terms and the developed countries have been the emitters of greenhouse gases for the past 45 years.

Dr Pachauri said even in the US there is a shift of public opinion, not to the extent taking place in the parts of Europe, but the governments has to be wary of it.

''There are 1,300 journalist in Bali right now and if these delegations were to go back without any result or go back with the impression that they have been obstructing the negotiations, they will have a tough time back home,'' Dr Pachauri said.

The talks also involved the role of forests in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and how poor countries could be rewarded for keeping their forests intact.

''The subject has been discussed. We are working out all the modalities and will be a very complex procedure,'' Dr Pachauri said.

UNI

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