Poland: Global warming talks fail to warm up

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New Delhi: It's a race to stop global temperatures from shooting higher that two degrees from 1990 levels. There has been a bid to curb the deadly effects of global warming and the deadline to form a global treaty to do this is 2009. However, there are now new reports that the recently concluded climate summit in Poland - that was to set the tone for these crucial negotiations - has drawn a complete blank. The tug-of-war between the rich and developing nations to curb green house gas emissions is continuing.

IPCC Chairman, R K Pauchauri had said that he hoped in Poznan, Poland, the nations would at least agree on some solid principles on which the agreement should be crafted.

However, the 189 nations at the all-important climate change meet in Poland may just be returning home with no such agreement.

Even on the last day, reports suggested that the United Nations-led climate talks meant to find a global consensus on slashing green house gas emissions was struggling to make progress. While rich nations have avoided setting targets of any kind, they have been mounting pressure to divide developing countries based on their economic status to get them to commit to binding emission targets -- something India and the rest of the G77 nations are strongly opposed to.

Environmentalist Sunita Narain says, "It's a divide and rule policy. You slice off countries and then one takes the lead."

There has also been no consensus on how the world will finance initiatives to cut carbon emissions and how developing counties will receive the technology know-how to switch to a low carbon economy.

Thanks to the looming recession, even the flag bearer of climate change - the European Union - is now divided on achieving its target of 20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

Science and Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal says, "Let's move forward when the western world has delivered. They cannot ask for commitments from India without delivering themselves."

It's still unclear to many delegates if the world will meet its deadline to frame a climate treaty in Copenhagen next year. And the biggest losers in all this would be island nations, already hit by rising sea levels and the poor developing countries like India, which are facing the prospect of harsher droughts and heavier floods and storms as global warming spreads its tentacles.