CHINA, INDIA AND THE EXTENDED KYOTO PROTOCOL

CHINA, INDIA PLEDGE POLLUTION CUTS IN CLIMATE PACT

Kim Chipman and Alex Morales

Bloomberg, December 11, 2011

Developing nations led by China and India pledged they’d work toward an agreement that would limit their fossil fuel emissions for the first time, the biggest advance in the fight against global warming in 14 years.

Envoys from more than 190 nations also extended the Kyoto Protocol, the only ratified treaty limiting greenhouse gases. They will develop document with “legal force” by 2015 that would curb pollution for all nations, according to a text adopted today in Durban, South Africa.

The move breaks a division enshrined in the United Nations- led discussions since 1992 that allowed the poorest nations to escape commitments on burning coal and oil while requiring industrial nations to clean up the atmosphere. That rift prevented the U.S. from ratifying Kyoto, which is the heart of the international effort to protect the environment.

“Historic is the word,” Grenadian ambassador Dessima Williams, lead negotiator for a coalition of 42 island nations, said in an interview. “The idea that we got everybody to agree to take some form of legal commitment is a major outcome.”

The talks dragged more than 28 hours past their scheduled Dec. 9 finish as a division emerged between a coalition of more than 120 nations backing a road map to a legally-binding deal and China and India, which sought weaker language on the eventual legal form of the pact. It was the longest meeting since the climate talks began in 1992.

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